Ill Fishing in the Southern Seas 5 3 



sweet a music as it has ever done by Shannon or 

 Brora, and tough old twenty-foot-long " Chevalier " 

 bends his honest back to the very grips. Not only 

 does he rush like Salino salar, but he emulates him 

 in the art of throwing himself clean out of water, over 

 and over again — a performance which always causes a 

 most exquisite throb of mingled fear and admiration 

 to pass through my bosom. The Maoris, who are — 

 or were — a race of splendid fishermen, killed their 

 kahawai by hundreds with a bait made out of the 

 curved portion of a Venus'-ear shell, set into a 

 backing of hard wood, and cunningly tied to a hook 

 of bone (human bone for preference), and I have been 

 told by experts that the best part of an inner 

 tabernacle for this purpose is the front part of the 

 shin — the tibia of the anatomist. I have caught 

 many a kahawai with this apparatus, but I think 

 that a slip of a sardine-box some three or four inches 

 long, fastened to a piece of kauri wood, and deftly 

 curved into a shape which will produce a judicious 

 wobble (not a spin, that is to be avoided) when it is 

 going through the water, is quite as good ; and a 

 sliver from the tail of the first fish which you catch 

 is decidedly better than either, for with it you have 

 a chance of catching fish who would not stir at the 

 mere motion of a bait without the further attrac- 

 tion of smell — a sense which, I am convinced, is 

 highly developed in most sea -fishes, if not in our 

 English river ones. Taste is also developed in many 

 fishes to a high degree. With what an expression 



